SOME BIRD NOTES 217 



soon take their departure, to be missed less, perhaps, than 

 they were noticed in the jolly springtime. 



" I want to know this of the swallows : Has any reader 

 observed definitely, and with assurance, any swallow, house- 

 martin, or sand-martin deliberately hunt down and devour 

 either a butterfly of any colour, white or otherwise, or a crane- 

 fly (Tipula}, that parent of the unpopular and destructive 

 grub known as leather-jacket ? 



" When I was a small boy employed at a little chandlery 

 shop, I, during one of those unaccountably magnanimous 

 fits which sometimes take possession of young urchins, 

 caught a wretched garden white butterfly, that was beating 

 itself against the window panes, wondering whatever kept it 

 from the bright sunshine outside. I tenderly brought it to 

 the door (so unlike the ordinary boy, forsooth !) and told it 

 to fly away and be gone. It had not reached the sill of the 

 bedroom window ere a passing martin dashed up behind it, 

 crumpled it up like a wisp of tissue paper, and swallowed it 

 in a moment. Has any reader ever seem anything like it? 



"JOHN KNOWLITTLE." 



Replies were soon forthcoming, two or three of which 

 were as follow : 



" SIR, In reply to ' John Knowlittle/ I, when a boy, 

 helping to build a haystack, used to catch a moth and throw 

 it up as high as I could. It would then expand its wings, 

 and a swallow would come and seize its body, while its wings 

 would come fluttering down. I did this so many times that 

 the birds would come within a few inches of my hand, and 

 catch the insects almost before they could get upon the wing, 

 so I did not always observe the wings falling. I have often 

 since set a butterfly free in the presence of swallows, in order 

 to observe how cleverly they separate the sapid body from 

 the wings, but it is not always done. 



" Yours etc. C. B." 



" SIR, . . . I have once, and only once, seen any member 

 of the Hirundince hunt a butterfly on the wing, and the 

 occasion I refer to happened on a bright summer's day, when 

 I witnessed a swallow, high up in the air, secure with 

 unerring aim a white butterfly, which I presume it swallowed. 



" Apropos of butterflies entering into the menu of our in- 

 sectivorous birds, I would like to record the following incident 

 that came under my observation a few Sundays ago : 



" On some wire-netting surrounding a tennis-court were 



